Cerabino: Opposition to development a war to Century Villagers

Hundreds of Century Village residents hold signs along Haverhill Road in protest of a plan to build homes and offices on a former golf course near their neighborhood in West Palm Beach on Tuesday.

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REF:


 http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/cerabino-opposition-to-development-a-war-to-century-2125931.html


By: Frank Cerabino

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 9:20 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012
Posted: 8:38 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012
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Be advised: Downtown West Palm Beach will be in Lockdown Condition Gray Thursday morning. 
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Bus loads of Century Villagers will be rolling in for an assault on the Palm Beach County Commission chambers, storming the beachhead of bureaucracy in a kind of last hoorah for some who view this battle on a continuum that started with World War II. 
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"We won that war and we're going to win this one too," said Philip Shapkin, 84, who is the president of a committee in Century Village that has been dedicated to stopping the invasion of a planned development on the condo's southeastern front. 
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"I hope we will be flowing out into the streets," Shapkin said about today's 9:30 a.m. zoning hearing with county commissioners. "I want them to understand that we are fighting for the quality of our life."
The battle is over the derelict Turtle Bay golf course that adjoins Century Village at the corner of Haverhill Road and Okeechobee Boulevard. The executive course has served as the village's own golf spot for decades, but its most recent owner, Drew Waldman, said it has gotten too unprofitable to operate. 
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Golf course goes idle
Century Villagers aren't the spry young retirees who bought into the community at its inception, Waldman said, and the condo's aging population has made the course a losing proposition. So he shut it down three years ago. 
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"Out of 7,854 households in Century Village, less than 200 came to play," Waldman said. "We were never able to capture the revenue needed to maintain the course."
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So he wants to turn the 70-acre property into Reflection Bay, a town center development of shops, homes and businesses. And to do it, he needs the county's approval to change the 1973 designation of the land as a golf course "in perpetuity."
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So far, the developer has won the first battle, getting 6-1 approval from the county's zoning board last month, despite facing an angry crowd of about 500 Century Villagers who swelled beyond the hearing room into three overflow rooms at the county's Vista Center complex on Jog Road. 
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"All of our entreaties about noise, dirt, increased paramedic response times, water issues, increased traffic on Haverhill Road to the tune of 3,300 trips daily fell on deaf ears " wrote David Israel, the president of Century Village's governing body, in the village's newspaper. "This condescending and 'we know better' attitude was the general overlay of the entire hearing, a withering disrespect for our seniors; it was a very sobering experience."
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So today's attempt to get the county commissioners to reverse the zoning board's recommendation is bound to be a full-fledged frontal attack. 
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Five buses will be rolling. Two thousand postcards of complaints have been written to county commissioners. A lawyer has been hired, and a letter of intent from another developer interested in buying the land and keeping it as a golf course will be presented, Shapkin said. 
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Supporters are 'silent'
It's not the first time that Century Villagers have tried to shoo developers from the edges of their kingdom.
Seven years ago, the condo mobilized to run off national home-building giant, D.R. Horton, which had plans to convert the golf course into 650 homes. 
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This time around, Waldman, the golf course owner, went out of his way to persuade Century Villagers that Reflection Bay would be a good development for them.
Waldman sent notices to every home in Century Village, inviting residents to find out about the project on a toll-free line or a website. He also provided residents with free transportation to a nearby Hampton Inn, where he held more than two dozen information sessions about his project. 
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"There's a tremendous amount of Century Village support that's silent," Waldman said. "People in Century Village get vilified or ostracized if they speak out. It takes a lot of courage to stand up to a mob."
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The visible opposition rallying against him today isn't representative of the opinion that Century Villagers have toward the project, Waldman said.
"We think that the vast majority of people in Century Village either support us or don't care," he said.
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